Banana Web

Clutter Control

You should keep the clutter minimum in your house to create a neat look and spare more space for the room itself. If you have too much stuff, it will spoil the look of a room, confuse the eye and generally get in the way. Also take into consideration that clutter influences how you feel: it is far easier to be relaxed and comfortable if your surroundings are calm and organized.

Our homes are under constant attack from clutter. There is the stuff that accumulates daily almost like dust, for example, newspapers, magazines, bills, laundry; and there are things things that you acquire gradually over the years, like books, clothes, photographs and furniture. The first group simply needs to be dealt with regularly to keep it under control. The second is more of a problem because it invades the house slowly and imperceptibly, so that you do not realize how much of it you have until your space actually becomes less usable because of it. There are three key elements to clutter control:

1. You need to be selective about your possessions.

2. You need to display or store them astutely, and

3. You also need to discipline yourself into clear-thinking, anti-clutter habits.

Furniture Tips

After the lighting planning, go for furniture set-up. Furniture should never be chosen in isolation from the surroundings it is going to occupy, and this is especially important where space is in limited supply. However accurately you think you can envisage what it will look like, dimensions are always deceptive.

Never go shopping for furniture without a full set of measurements recording the available space and a tape-measure to check the size of any piece you are planning to buy-not just so that you can be sure it will fit into the space, but also to check that it suits the proportions of the rooms. Small rooms need smaller-scale furniture to keep the whole effect balanced, so be particularly careful with large pieces like sofas and dining tables. Scaled-down furniture will make the room bigger.

Think about the shape too, and look for neat, compact designs such as square cut boxy shapes that follow the angles of the room. Streamlined curves also work well, as they take up less room than outward-splaying scroll arms or old-fashioned wing chairs. Tapering designs, such as upright chairs with back that narrows towards the top, will also create an illusion of more space.